UPDATED: Police work to identify body found in park

A Brandon Police Service member sits in a vehicle near the banks of the Assiniboine River in Queen Elizabeth Park on Wednesday morning. City police confirm that they're investigating after human remains were found in Queen Elizabeth Park on Tuesday evening.

Police say that they're working to identify the body that was found Tuesday evening in Queen Elizabeth Park, but they say preliminarily that the remains do not appear to be recent.

However, the investigation is not a historical or archaeological one either. Police tell the Sun that the body was apparently found wearing the remnants of jeans and possibly running shoes.

Bright lights in the area late Tuesday evening first drew curious citizens to the park, just west of 26th Street North near the southern edge of the Assiniboine River. They turned out to be the lights of a police vehicle for an officer who was apparently guarding the scene.

Brandon Police Service Sgt. Dallas Lockhart said city contract workers called police around 7:30 p.m. They reported that they'd found human remains while clearing away downed trees and debris left by the 2011 flood.

"We attended down there and believe that what was found are human remains and we are now in the process of investigating what we have found," Lockhart said yesterday.

Lockhart said the workers' equipment uncovered snow and other debris which had covered the remains which were in an "extremely advanced state of decomposition."

The gender and age of the person will have to be determined by forensic examination, Lockhart said. The identity of the remains hasn't been determined.

The BPS Criminal Investigation Unit and the Forensic Indentification Unit will investigate, and have been joined by the Office of the Medical Examiner.

No cause of death has been ruled out at this point, police say, although they are tentatively considering it as suspicious.

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